Working for BHG was an interesting experience. It began with a lot of promise - all of the glowing Glassdoor reviews, their love of the term PMA (positive mental attitude), and their emphasis of this being more like a family, and less like another drab workplace. There were monthly award ceremonies, the management team seemed friendly and in-tune with their employees, all of which seemed like nice changes from the stuffy suit-and-tie types, right? Well...depends on what you’re really looking for in an employer.
It’s peculiar when companies lean on a lot of feel-good generic statements and the notion that we are all just “one big family”. Not excluding BHG, this generally translates into a subtle reminder for employees not to act in their own interests...don’t ask for a raise, don’t pursue better opportunities, don’t ask for work-life balance, and don’t speak up too often, because why would you “act up” like that if your work is your family? Of course, the sentiment abruptly ends when there are people to discipline, unfair workload distributions, lopsided compensation strategies, and less patience for mistakes. The management team wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. A little research will reveal a lot of nepotism, favoritism, and so on. Which, to be fair, who wouldn’t employ their friends and family at their own company? That being said, the unfavorable management approach carries into some of the most senior roles, regardless of qualification (and we all know what happens when you, with years of experience, are suddenly managed by Little Billy, the big boss’s nephew). The award ceremonies are pretty consistent with only rewarding the same folks in management (the friends and family of ownership, like Little Billy), month and month again, while sprinkling in a few surprises. And again - it’s your company, reward who you’d like. It’s just demoralizing when the regular non-friends-and-family employees have to watch the same people be rewarded every month (and then of course be told, this could be you winning this money if you worked as hard as Little Billy! Fun fact - “working harder” doesn’t suddenly make you related to the right people). With all of that being said, this is the typical stuff you see at typical companies, so who cares? I think what boils down into a problem for most people is how far BHG will go to hide just how generic and predictably disappointing they are in terms of how they operate and manage things (it’s like a weird hybrid of a Google-wannabe office and the TV show The Office). The “we are a family” and “look at our cool offices with beanbags” hype just doesn’t solve the real problems being faced by employees working at BHG. But alas, some folks prefer the relaxed work culture in exchange for fair and transparent discussions regarding workload, compensation, management, and so on. As noted initially, it just depends on what you are looking for in an employer.
TLDR: management offers pseudo-family mentality and beanbags at the cost of fair compensation and treatment.
